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Do Surprise Week 1 Studs Continue to Produce?

John was named the Most Accurate Fantasy Football Expert by FantasyPros for the 2010 and 2014 seasons, finished as runner-up in 2011 and 4th in 2012 for a total of four Top 5 seasons in five years. Cumulatively, John was the most accurate expert from 2010-14 while also winning the 2011 Fantasy Sports Trade Association award for the most accurate preseason rankings.

The fantasy world is abuzz after Kevin Ogletree torched the Giants for eight catches for 114 yards and two touchdowns. Entering the season as the team's WR3, Ogletree saw more targets (11) than did Dez Bryant and Miles Austin combined (9). Fantasy owners are justifiably curious as to whether or not Ogletree is worth a pickup. The answer to that is yes, but it depends on who has to be dropped.

Every year, at least one undrafted WR explodes in Week 1 and becomes one of the hottest players on the waiver wire. To put Ogletree's performance into perspective, I compiled all of the big Week 1 performances from the last five years by undrafted and underdrafted WRs. I'm interested to see how these players performed during the rest of the season.

I included anyone who scored more than 15.0 points in W1 (in PPR formats) and was either undrafted or drafted in the 11th round or later in 12-team drafts. This should cover anyone who was available on the waiver wire, even in shallow leagues.

There were 32 players who fit the criteria in the last five years. Eighteen of those players were not drafted in fantasy drafts.

The table shows the player's performance in Week 1, his ADP, end of season rank, fantasy points scored and average PPG for the rest of the season. I also included what that PPG equates to in terms of fantasy position (WR1, WR2, etc.) as well as the player's role for the remainder of the season (among all the WR, RB and TE in the passing game) along with his targets per game (T/G) from Week 2 to Week 17. We're trying to get an idea of what kind of upside Ogletree has as the 3rd wide receiver and 4th option in the passing game (when we include Jason Witten).

In terms of undrafted players, Ogletree's 31.4 fantasy points blows away the next highest performance (Devery Henderson's 22.0 FP in 2011). On average, undrafted W1 studs average 7.5 points over the remainder of the season, which equate to WR5 numbers. The average role was 4.0, so on average they were the 4th option in their team's passing game. Eight of the 18 undrafted players were fantasy relevant (WR5 or better PPG for the remainder of the season).

When we include those players were drafted in the 11th round or later, the average jumps to 8.9 fantasy points, which equates to fantasy WR4 numbers.

Note: Speaking of Henderson, he appeared on this list three times! Over the past four seasons, Henderson has racked up 13 catches for 325 yards and four touchdowns (one in each game) in Week 1. That's an average of 3.3–81–1.0, which are top 5 numbers. He is notoriously undependable, which is why he's typically undrafted, but don't bet against him in Week 1.

The interesting thing about Ogletree is that Laurent Robinson thrived in the same role last season. In 14 games, Robinson finished with 54 catches for 858 yards and 11 touchdowns. However, he benefited from Miles Austin missing some time due to injury. In the six games that Austin was sidelined, Robinson averaged 4.7-69-0.83 (or 16.3 fantasy points). In eight games Robinson played with a healthy Austin, he averaged 3.3-56-0.75 (or 13.4 FP).

Even with a healthy Austin, Robinson was averaging fantasy WR2 numbers. This bodes well for Ogletree, who looked very capable of exploiting defenses when they are focused on Bryant, Austin and Witten, and Tony Romo has proven that he will take what the defense gives him.

BOTTOM LINE

I don't think Ogletree is as talented as Robinson, but he does have some upside. I'd pick him up assuming he's going to be a WR4 and perhaps he becomes a WR3. That puts him in the 40s in rest-of-season rankings. I don't think that he's worth blowing your entire Free Agent Acquisition Budget -- but 15%-20% sounds reasonable.

Those owners who have Bryant or Austin may want to pick him up as a handcuff. If either of those players went down, he immediately become a viable fantasy WR2/WR3.